


flesh and fear and endless red

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Blood, Eldritch Abomination AU, Episode: s01e16-17 Peter Nureyev and the Angel of Brahma, Gore, M/M, Peter has anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 17:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16769944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: Peter is terrified. Not of the masked assistants and the things they might do to him, not of Miasma and her experiments.No.There are far worse things out there, and they're coming for him





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> beecrime asked:
> 
> we talked a little about this an age ago, but Angel of Brahma AU where the Guardian Angel System is an eldrich abomination?

Juno isn’t sure how long the two of them have been in this goddamn tomb. Hours, at least. Days, maybe? It’s hard to tell this deep below ground. All he knows is that he wakes up in this cell with Nureyev, and he’s barely ever awake for more than a few minutes before he’s dragged back to that table for another round of that goddamned game until he passes out, and then it starts all over again.

Most of the time Nureyev is right by his side when he wakes up, easing him up and cleaning the blood off his face and urging him to drink something. But this time when Juno’s eyes drag open, he’s staring at the ceiling, and Nureyev isn’t there. 

Adrenaline wakes him up fast. Did something happen to him? Did Miasma decide that he isn’t worth keeping as a hostage? Did she actually kill him this time?

He yanks himself to his feet, already halfway into a frenzy. He’ll kill Miasma. Goddammit, he’ll kill her. He’ll–

And then he sees Nureyev, and his anger deflates. He’s lying down, so close to one of the brighter hieroglyphics that he was lost in the glare. Even asleep, he still manages to disappear.

Juno might tell him that when he wakes up. It might make him smile.

He’s out cold but clearly alive, based on the rise and fall of his chest. Juno gets a clearer look at that chest than he usually gets; Nureyev’s layers are gone, stripped to all but his undershirt. Juno glances back to where he was lying: there’s the outer shirt, folded into a makeshift pillow where Juno’s head used to be, and the jacket looked like it had been draped over him like a blanket. Meanwhile Nureyev is uncovered and his head is resting on his own folded arm. 

It makes Juno’s chest ache a little bit. 

Nureyev looks too cold to stay uncovered for the rest of… whatever this is, the night or naptime or whatever. He gathers up the jacket and dusts it off, and then kneels to drape it over Nureyev’s sleeping form.

That’s the first time that he notices the tattoos. 

It’s funny– he would have assumed that tattoos would have been a liability for someone who changes identities as casually as Nureyev does, but here they are, starting just above his elbows and climbing up his shoulders to disappear under the straps of his shirt. The tattoos continue across his collarbone and peek out, the dark strikingly visible across that gap of bare skin where his shirt’s come untucked from his pants. He recognizes symbols from a handful of religions, alphabets from at least a dozen different languages, none of which he can read. Some of the tattoos are huge; others are tiny, squeezed into the space between letters and pictograms. He’s surprised he never noticed them before– but then, he’s never seen Nureyev show this much skin before, has he? It was always high collars and long sleeves with him, even if those sleeves were sometimes rolled up to the elbow– only that far, never any further. Even in that hotel, he was wearing long-sleeved pajamas. 

It occurs to Juno that he should look away. It’s obvious Nureyev’s been trying to conceal these tattoos; staring at them now when Nureyev’s unconscious feels invasive.

He drapes the jacket over Nureyev, careful to cover the ink. 

* * *

Nureyev’s scared.

He’s trying not to show it, but it’s hard to hide that sort of thing from the guy who’s rooting around inside his head. And that makes sense– you’d have to be crazy not to be terrified down here– except that it’s not Miasma he’s afraid of.

He freezes every time her assistants step through the door and approach the cell, but that tension fades away when he sees those awful masks on their faces. It might be him putting on a show, but he almost seems _relieved_ to be dragged back into their endless torture.

Juno’s the only person he knows who hates himself that much, and even he’s not happy to see these goons.

Pretty soon it’s not just the door that has Nureyev jumpy. It’s any sudden move, any unexpected sound. The pipes retrofitted into the ancient tomb creak and shift every time they’re used, and each time Nureyev jerks like he’s been grabbed. 

There’s not much Juno can do about it, so he talks. Not because he wants to, but because it seems to give Nureyev something to focus on that isn’t the distant sounds of footsteps and the ominous creak of bad plumbing. 

* * *

The light flickers again, leaving their cell dark except for the hieroglyphics on the tomb walls. The light from those is harsh and sickly, and it casts long shadows that twist and writhe and stretch out in unnatural directions. 

Nureyev tenses. He reaches for the pockets of a coat that’s been long since confiscated by Miasma’s assistants, and his head whips around, searching the shadows for… Juno doesn’t even know what he’s looking for. 

“Hey,” he says, but Nureyev doesn’t seem to hear him. He raises his voice, grabbing at Nureyev’s hand. “Hey.”

“Hm?” Nureyev tries to sound casual, but his voice is an octave higher than it should be, and his palm is damp with sweat. “Did you need something, Juno?”

Normally this would be a good time to let go of Nureyev and pretend his hand just slipped or something, but the fear is too sharp on Nureyev’s face. It would be cruel to pull away right now.

So he grunts. “Those goddamn walls give me the creeps.”

Nureyev squeezes his hand. “Yes, those carvings are… unsettling, aren’t they? The writings of an extinct species: symbols and even ideas from minds millions of years gone.”

Right now Juno really couldn’t care less what they say. Nureyev’s turned to look at the hieroglyphics, and their eerie light is less sinister when it’s reflected in his eyes. 

Turns out Nureyev wasn’t just pretending to be a nerd when he was Rex Glass. He knows a whole lot about a whole lot, and he seems to calm down a bit when he’s rambling about people who are deader than they are.

And hey, at least it’s giving Juno an education. 

* * *

There’s a creak in the pipes, and Nureyev starts to shift in his sleep. A few more seconds and he’ll be awake, and that won’t work. Neither one of them is in good enough shape to start skipping nap time. 

Juno wraps an arm around Nureyev’s chest and pulls him closer, offering him something between a hum and a grunt. It’s not exactly the most soothing of sounds, but it’s enough to ease Nureyev back into a peaceful rest. 

They’re sharing space now when they sleep, because it’s easier to keep warm when they’re huddled together under the makeshift blankets, and because it’s the only way Nureyev can sleep at all anymore.

Nureyev’s paranoia is getting worse. Maybe it’s a thief thing– one of those habits that keeps a man from getting caught after a lifetime on the run – or maybe he’s run out of a prescription he isn’t getting down here, or maybe it’s the obvious reaction to being locked up by a woman who very much wants to kill them. It isn’t helping at all that Miasma hired a bunch of amateurs to retrofit this goddamn tomb with basic fucking amenities. Every creaking pipe and flickering light threatens to send him into an anxiety attack, and probably for good reason: they’re at least a mile underground, dependent on electrolyzers and carbon scrubbers to keep them supplied with air. If those life support systems fail, then it’s only a matter of time before everyone down here asphyxiates in the dark– assuming Miasma doesn’t kill them all herself. Juno never really thought he’d make it to fifty, but this isn’t the way he expected to go.

After all, he always assumed he would be the little spoon.

* * *

“Well, Miasma, I can see you couldn’t afford to keep a nurse on staff. This one couldn’t inject a sedative into the broad… side of a…” And then Nureyev goes silent.

He said sedative. He said _sedative_. Not poison, not lethal injection. _Sedative_. This is for that… stage two Miasma was talking about.

He’s going to be okay. _Please let him be okay._

But Juno knows he won’t be– not if he stops being useful to Miasma. Not if Juno doesn’t do what she says.

He has no choice.

So he closes his eyes and reaches out. He can feel the edges where Nureyev’s mind meets his, the warmth of it spiked with veins of fear. Of course it is. He’s got a plenty to be afraid of right here. But Juno swears he’s going to do everything he can to protect Nureyev from that. From Miasma.

And so he opens the door into Nureyev’s head, and he steps inside.

On the other side there is red.

So much red. It clings to every surface, so thick on the ground that his shoes sink in up to the heel, splatted across Nureyev’s face, hot and wet on his hands. One of those hands is braced against the shoulder of an older man– bigger, broader, with a full beard and big owlish eyes that would be imposing if they weren’t wide and terrified. He stumbles backward away from the teenage boy, his knees buckling as his back hits the wall. Every inch of him is shaking, but he holds up a hand.

“Please,” he whispers, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. There are tears in his eyes. “Pete, please–”

Nureyev’s hand tightens around the handle of a knife. The blade is embedded deep in the larger man’s chest.

The man reaches out and touches Nureyev’s cheek. Tenderly. Lovingly.

Nureyev flinches away from that hand as if it’s a hot poker, and he pulls the knife out of the man’s chest. For a moment he stares at the knife, and then he slashes it across the man’s throat.

The man lets out a bubbling, wheezing breath as he slides down the wall, so slowly that there’s barely a splash as the pool swallows him.

Nureyev steps away from him, his grip tightening on the knife. And on the knife, on his hands, splattered across his face, there is nothing but _red_.

* * *

Juno wakes up feeling like he’s rotting from the inside. He rolls over to retch, but there’s not enough in him to come out. He’s left on his hands and knees, dry heaving onto the cold floor. 

The fit is barely over before lean arms are gathering him against a warm chest, and a water bottle is pressed to his lips. 

“Drink something,” Nureyev murmurs, and Juno gratefully obeys, gulping down as much as he can handle. The cold water feels alien and unpleasant in his empty stomach, sloshing around like it doesn’t belong there, but it beats the hell out of the sticky, sickly feeling that was clinging to him before. He can’t remember the last time somebody held him like that when he was sick, and he’s halfway thinking that it might be worth it, almost throwing up to be held this way–

And then he remembers who’s holding him, and he feels like he’s rotting all over again. He shoves Nureyev away and falls backward, breathing heavy.

That wasn’t just a dream. 

“Juno?” For an instant, Nureyev looks hurt… or concerned? It’s hard to tell; Juno’s head is swimming. “Juno, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Juno says too sharply. “I’m fine.”

“You hardly look–” Nureyev reaches for him again, and Juno pulls out of his grasp. 

“You wanna get your hands off me? This isn’t a goddamn honeymoon suite.”

Nureyev’s features smooth over into something carefully blank. Juno knows that look well by now; it’s the expression Nureyev makes when he’s hurt. “…Alright.” 

A part of him wants to feel bad about it, but too much of him feels sick. 

_Not a honeymoon suite_. That’s a laugh. The two of them have been holding hands and cuddling and fucking _spooning_ as long as they’ve been down here. Even now, knowing what he knows, Juno wants to reach out to him, too, but he keeps seeing the owl-eyed man in his mind’s eye, begging for his life. Nureyev’s hands weren’t so gentle when they slit his throat.

Nureyev’s a murderer. A monster. And Juno can justify working with him to get out of here alive, but it needs to end there. He can’t let himself get close to someone like that. He can’t get comfortable. He can’t. He won’t.

The lights flicker, and Nureyev is bathed in the eerie glow of the hieroglyphics again. Their awful, unnatural light was always creepy, but now it feels too red, too sticky, too much like another light in another room, and the way it hits Nureyev’s face–

It doesn’t do a thing to hide the fear in his eyes. Nureyev’s hands open compulsively, as if he’s reaching for something– Juno’s hand? or a knife? Not that it matters, because Miasma’s assistants got rid of all their weapons when they arrived, and Juno shoves his own hands into his pockets. He’s not letting himself get pulled back in that easily.

He expects Nureyev to say something about that, but he doesn’t. He just swallows and glances over his shoulders. “They really should do something about the wiring down here. It’s atrocious.”

“I don’t know about you, but I want out of here before Miasma gets around to calling an electrician.” He takes a few steps away, just to rid himself of temptation. “So how are we gonna get out of here, anyway? Master of break-ins isn’t worth much if he can’t break out.”

It’s a petty jab, but Nureyev doesn’t react to it. “We’ll escape when the opportunity presents itself. No guard patrol is–” He’s interrupted by a creak from one of the pipes, so long and low that it sounds more like a growl. For an instant, Nureyev goes still and pale. It takes a long moment to collect himself. “As I was saying. The guards will make a mistake eventually.” He doesn’t reach for Juno, doesn’t try to swoon into his arms, doesn’t try to play up the part of the damsel for the big damn hero to fawn over. The color doesn’t return to his face. 

It’s hard to watch, so Juno looks away. 


	2. Chapter 2

The next time they’re dragged in for Miasma’s experiments, there’s no warm-up. Nureyev is barely strapped into his chair before he’s sedated, and Juno’s forced back into his memories.

There’s not much context to this one: just a young Nureyev and the owl-eyed man again, but they’re walking through a door into a long hallway.

Just a hallway. That’s it.

The walls, floor, and ceiling are all lined with some kind of red velvet– it absorbs the light that pours from the fluorescent bulbs overhead and muffles the sounds of their footsteps and voices, leaving them in eerie silence.

“See, Pete?” declares the owl-eyed man triumphantly. “I told you it wasn’t a bathroom!”

“No, it isn’t.” Nureyev peers down the hall, but there’s nothing for him to look at– no control panels, no doors, no windows, no signs. Just endless red, right until the hall makes a sharp left turn. “But why did they have all those cameras pointed at that door? There’s nothing in here.”

“Nothing so far,” the owl-eyed man corrects him. “But all the schematics say it’s got to be down this hall.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Are you feeling alright, Pete?” the owl-eyed man asks. “You’re looking a little _flushed_.” He cackles at his own joke, almost drowning out the sound of Nureyev’s groan.

“You do realize that this isn’t a bathroom, right?” 

“Oh, I know. I just couldn’t _hold it in_. Ha!” He claps Nureyev on the back with another hoot. 

Nureyev rolls his eyes. “That was terrible, Mag, even for you.” He speeds his pace slightly to escape the next volley of puns, and he only gets as far as the next corner. “…Mag?” The hallway keeps going just like before: a long stretch of red without windows or doors, ending in a left turn. He turns back to glance at the old thief. “Mag, are you sure–”

He stops short.

He’s looking back at the hall he just walked down– the one that should have ended with a doorway. But there’s no door there. It just ends in another left turn.

But that can’t be right.

That _can’t_ be right.

He must be seeing things. But when Mag turns to follow his gaze, he sees it, too.

“Well,” he says with a forced cheer. “Guess there’s nothing to do but go forward.”

And then they walk.

After the fourth stretch, Nureyev assumes they’re moving in some kind of spiral, and so he starts counting. Twenty-four steps, and then a left turn. Then twenty-four steps, and then another left turn. And then twenty-four more steps…

It doesn’t end.

After the eighth turn, they decide they must be going in circles, so Mag pulls out a knife and starts slicing marks in the wall, always on the left-hand side. Every time the blade carves through drywall and into riveted steel. They never pass the marks a second time.

They just keep going, hall after hall, turn after turn, for hours.

At least, it seems like hours. They have no comms to check, there are no windows. It could be days. It feels like days.

Eventually they stop talking, too parched to speak. Nureyev’s feet ache from the endless march; his stomach cramps with hunger pains that he hasn’t felt since he was a kid, wandering the streets alone.

It’s a weird thought to come up, so Juno pries at it. He knows he shouldn’t– it feels somehow more invasive than what he’s already doing– but he’s already here, isn’t he? And so he lets himself dig at it.

And it comes pouring in: the streets, the cold, the hunger, the lasers of the law cracking like lightning from the floating city above. The years of barely surviving, remembering only one thing: his name. And then Mag, and a purpose for the first time.

Because Mag taught Peter the secret of Brahma: that all the petty criminals stunned by laser fire on the streets below aren’t taken to prison for their crimes. They’re brought up here. Into this city, down this hallway. That’s how he knows it has to lead somewhere. Because hundreds– _thousands_ – of people have vanished in here, and they have yet to find a single body.

There are bodies Nureyev wants to find, ghosts he wants to put to rest, just in his own mind. Kay, and Regina, and Max, and the other street kids who weren’t as quick as him, or as lucky. Mag’s friends, the old partner he doesn’t talk about, the kid who Nureyev only knows existed because of furtive glances and heavy silences.

And his father.

It ends here, he swears silently. New Kinshasa’s reign of terror ends with him. He’s going to make sure this never happens again. He’s going to make sure nobody else has to lose people the way he did.

The walls groan, like heat settling into cold pipes. Moments later, the lights flicker.

Mag tenses. “Stay close to me, Pete.” Like he can do a goddamn thing to protect Nureyev from what’s coming.

They keep walking. There’s no telling how long they’ve been down here. The walls keep groaning. The flickering lights flash and refract oddly off Nureyev’s glasses, and they leave him with migraines. It’s getting harder and harder for him to walk in a straight line; he tries keeping his hand on the wall to steady himself, but that odd, velvety wallpaper feels all wrong under his clammy hands.

It feels almost alive.

He stumbles away, shuddering.

“Peter?” It’s the first word Mag has said in… who even knows how long it’s been. His voice is cracked and hoarse, but his tone is gentle. “We’ve been going for a long time. Why don’t you get some rest?”

“And get caught down here?” Peter asks. “When we’ve come so far?”

It’s evasion, and they both know it; they haven’t seen anybody in this hall, and they probably aren’t going to. But the floor is made out of the same stuff as the walls, and the thought of laying his head down on it makes him nauseous.

“Much as I appreciate your dedication, these old bones could use a rest.” He sits in the center of the hall and strips down to his undershirt, laying out the thick shirt of his stolen guard’s uniform beside him like a picnic blanket. He pats the stretch of fabric invitingly. “Humor me.” 

There are tattoos on his skin– not nearly as many as Juno saw on Nureyev’s in the Martian tomb, though he recognizes some of the same symbols. Nureyev is familiar with them: some of them are gang signs and thieves’ cant, proclaiming his skills and accomplishments to the people who can read it on his skin. Some are religious symbols, used when he needed to blend in with the cults and organizations that got him this far. Nureyev has a few of those himself, from the times he joined Mag on those missions, though his are more personal: symbols of invisibility and protection, to hide him from the lasers of New Kinshasa. It’s just a bit of superstition, but it made him feel a little closer to Mag, knowing they had that bit of matching ink.

Nureyev sits, reluctantly. He fights it for the first few minutes, insisting to himself that he’s going to get up and be ready to go any minute now, as soon as Mag’s rested. He needs to stay alert for their mission.

It’s a short fight. Pretty soon he’s slumped onto Mag’s outstretched shirt, taking comfort in the smell of sweat and familiar cologne that’s soaked into the fabric. He doesn’t even have words to argue when Mag gently tugs the glasses off his face and sets them on the cloth beside him.

“Get some sleep, Pete. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Something changes while Nureyev is asleep. He can feel it before he opens his eyes: the air around him is warm and unpleasantly sticky. The floor feels all wrong, like it’s got too much give to it, and he’s grateful to have the stolen shirt between that awful texture and his face. He gets up quickly, just to put some more distance between himself and the floor, and reaches for his glasses.

“How long was I out?” he asks, trying to straighten his rumpled clothes. “Mag?”

There’s no reply.

He looks around the hallway, but he’s alone. “Mag?” His voice rises. Not in panic. He isn’t going to panic. “Mag?”

He searches for footprints, but the spongy floor reveals nothing. He’s gone.

Was he caught? No, that doesn’t make sense. Why would the guards take Mag and leave him behind?

Did he leave? No. He wouldn’t do that. Mag wouldn’t do that.

No, he must have gotten up to look around, and the hall must have shifted on him, the way it did with the door. That must be what happened. Mag wouldn’t leave him alone like that.

But he is alone now, trapped in the impossible geometry of this hallway. The thought hits him like a punch in the gut.

It was different with Mag– together they could do anything. Together nothing was impossible. They could outsmart any guard, hatch any plan, escape any trap.

But here– there’s nothing to outsmart here. There’s no way to be clever, no guards to fool, no locks to pick, no floor plan to memorize, and no Mag to swoop in and save him if things go wrong.

He can feel the panic rising in him, its tendrils digging into his mind and choking out rational thought. He tries to switch gears, to concentrate on the task at hand– but there is no task at hand. Just endless halls that will go on and on and on–

“Mag!” It comes out a scream, so loud that his voice cracks. And startled by the sound of his own scream, he takes off running– a mad sprint, interrupted only by his cries. He skids to a halt just before he hits the wall and turns the sharp left, bounding down the next, and then the next, and the next. The halls seem to shrink under his strides– or maybe they really are getting shorter. Maybe his sanity isn’t the only thing that’s spiraling into nothing.

* * *

When Juno wakes up, Nureyev is kneeling in the opposite corner of the cell, his back not quite pressed against the wall. He’s motionless except for the careful, regimented movements of his breathing– it reminds Juno too much of a rat that’s been spotted by a cat, frozen with the desperate hope that the predator won’t catch him if he just doesn’t move.

And then the lights flicker again, and a shudder rolls down his spine.

The memory of Mag begging for his life should be louder than the groaning of pipes and the catch of Nureyev’s breath, but it isn’t, and it’s starting to drive Juno a little bit crazy.

He can’t keep watching to this and do nothing, not when the memory of Nureyev’s panic is so fresh in his own mind. 

But Nureyev is a murderer.

But that was a long time ago, and he’s hurting _right now_.

But something like that doesn’t just go away.

But Juno knows better than anyone what it’s like to relive a twenty-year-old trauma.

But he’s a killer.

But Juno doesn’t care.

He probably should, but he doesn’t.

“Hey,” he says. Nureyev doesn’t reply. “Nureyev?”

He doesn’t move, still too caught up in his own thoughts. His eyes are fixed on something in the distance, but there’s nothing there. Juno climbs to his feet and settles beside him, laying a hand on Nureyev’s shoulder.

The thief startles so badly that it takes him a few seconds to register what’s going on.

“We’re going to get out of this.” Juno slides his hand down Nureyev’s arm to take his hand, careful not to startle him again.

“It’s good to see you feeling optimistic about all of this.” Nureyev’s voice is strained. 

“Somebody’s got to do it and you look like you’ve got a lot on your mind right about now.”

Nureyev flashes a grim smile. He looks like he might want to say something, but he’s interrupted by the groan of another pipe and another flicker. His mouth snaps shut and his hand squeezes Juno’s painfully tight. His eyes, when the lights stop strobing, are unfocused and wide.

“Stay with me, Nureyev.” Juno throws his other arm around the thief’s shoulder, trying to steady him. “It’s just the shitty pipes. You’re here with me, do you understand? You’re not on Brahma. You’re here with me, and we’re gonna get out of here.” 

Nureyev’s eyes snap to Juno’s with a sudden alertness. “What?”

“Listen, we’re going to figure this out–”

“I never said anything about Brahma.”

Juno swallows. Nureyev doesn’t actually know what Juno’s been doing, does he? Miasma never bothered to explain it to him, and Juno hasn’t exactly been talkative lately.

“When Miasma puts you under,” he says slowly. “She has me look into your… memories.” The words alone feel sickeningly invasive, but the look on Nureyev’s face leaves him nauseous. He hides it quickly, but for a moment his expression is raw with hurt and grief and betrayal.

“She didn’t give me a choice.” The words tumble out of Juno’s mouth. “She was going to start cutting you up if I didn’t go along with it.”

The explanation– the excuse– doesn’t seem to make a difference to Nureyev. “That’s why you stopped speaking to me.”

“It was a lot to take in–”

“I’m sure it was.” Nureyev’s hand rises unconsciously, rubbing a point just under his collarbone, and Juno can’t help remembering the tattoos that cover his skin. “You saw what happened on Brahma.”

“I saw you kill Mag. I don’t know why you did it, but–”

“I didn’t–” Nureyev’s voice rises abruptly, and just as quickly it falls silent. “I can’t justify myself to you, Juno. There’s no way I can explain without sounding like I’ve lost my mind.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Juno says quietly. 

“Yes, I do.” His grip is sharp around Juno’s hand. “Because you don’t understand, do you? You have _no idea_ what kind of danger you’re really in.” 

“You’re absolutely right. I completely missed the deranged xenoanthropologist and her trigger-happy lackeys. How did I not notice those?”

“Miasma is nothing compared to what’s coming,” Nureyev says. “Juno, you have to understand.”

“Then explain it to me–”

“I told you, _I can’t._ ” A frantic gleam lights Nureyev’s eyes. He looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. 

“Nureyev,” Juno says, throwing his arms around the thief’s shoulders and bracing him against his chest. “Nureyev, breathe. You’re not on Brahma. You’re here with me, and I need you to stay with me, okay? We’re gonna work it out. Nureyev–”

The kiss comes out of nowhere, clinging and desperate and so unlike Peter Nureyev, his fingers digging into Juno’s sides like he’s afraid Juno’s going to disappear even after Juno starts kissing him back. Juno’s hands rise to cradle Nureyev’s face, and he feels tears streaming down those elegant cheekbones.

When Nureyev finally pulls away, he’s breathing like he just ran a mile.

“I’m sorry, Juno,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Juno starts, trying to find the words to tell him that he’s been waiting for that kiss ever since the last one ended. He wants to pull Nureyev back in for another, or if he can’t do that, then just to hold him and keep him safe and make him believe that it’s really going to be okay, but when he tugs at his shoulders, Nureyev is stiff and unyielding. 

“I can’t explain what’s going to happen,” he says slowly. “But I can show you.”

Juno can’t bring himself to refuse. He leans his forehead against Nureyev’s and he lets his mind reach out.

Nureyev’s mind is still cluttered by panic, and it’s running in a hundred directions at once, pelting Juno with a barrage of images from a hundred places and times: dying lights in a hotel room, a groan like a hungry animal in the bowls of a sewer, bleeding walls in the home of a private collector. They’re only snapshots, a moment in time without context or meaning, but every one is laced through with the same panic he’s feeling now, the same urgency, the same desperate need to run.

He’s been running all his life, ever since that moment. Ever since that hallway.

And suddenly he’s there again: endless red walls, a panicked teenage boy who hasn’t had anything to eat or drink for days at least, left alone by the only person he has left in the world.

“Mag!” His voice is barely a croak now, but he keeps going. “Mag, please! Answer me!” 

His feet skid on the floor– was it always so slippery?– and he slams into the wall. Before it felt like something between paper and velvet, but now it gives under his hand, squishy and wet and pulsing lightly under his hands.

It feels–

It feels alive.

And in his mania, he clings to one desperate thought: if it’s alive, that means he can kill it.

He grabs his knife and slashes wildly at the wall, over and over again. It resists, stretchy and fibrous, and Nureyev knows that feeling. Not the feel of drywall plaster and paper and steel, but the feel of sinew and muscle fiber, the porous resistance of bone.

With every stab he’s sprayed by a hot, thick ichor, and he doesn’t care what it is or where it comes from. It’s all over him, soaking into his clothes and hair, getting into his eyes and mouth. 

“Oh Pete.” Mag’s voice drifts from behind him, soft and sympathetic. “Just look at this mess.”

Nureyev whips around, the knife still clutched in his hands. “Mag?”

He smears the ichor off his glasses, but he still can’t see Mag clearly. Through the slime, he looks all wrong. His big owlish eyes are too bright, his grin is too wide.

“First rule of thieving: never leave a mess if you can help it.”

It’s him– it’s him– of course it’s him, how could Nureyev have thought anything else?

“Mag, where did you go?” He leaps at his mentor and throws his arms around him, feeling like a child all over again. He may be sixteen, but he needs comfort right now. He needs a hug, he needs to feel Mag stroke his hair, he needs to know it’s going to be okay.

“I went scouting ahead,” Mag tells him. “I found a way out of here.”

The other assurances don’t come. The closest he gets is an odd warmth between his shoulder blades– a hand on his back? But no. It’s still there, even when Mag moves ahead of him.

And then he looks up at Mag, his shoulders left bare by his undershirt, and he sees the marks there: tattoos, the ink raised and vivid like it’s fresh on his skin, the flesh underneath it red and inflamed. He glances at the thieves’ cant tattoo on Mag’s bicep, but it’s unaffected– but the religious text around his elbow shows the same signs of freshness.

He keeps close behind as Mag leads him down the hall and turns right– but there wasn’t a turn there before, was there?– and leads him through an unlocked door.

Nureyev has never been here before, but Juno knows this door. He knows what’s going to happen, and he doesn’t want to see it. Not again.

But he has to. It’s going to happen whether he’s here or not, and he doesn’t want Nureyev to be alone when it does. It’s ridiculous– he knows that, it happened twenty years ago– but he can’t shake the feeling that this is something he needs to do. He can’t just leave Nureyev alone here.

And so he stays.


	3. Chapter 3

Mag’s feet slosh through the ankle-deep liquid that covers the floor of the next chamber.

The room is irregular in its shape, every inch of it covered in that same fleshy substance, all of it illuminated with a sticky red light that seems to pulse from a round… thing… in the room’s center. The way the light flashes and flickers, it seems almost like an enormous beating heart.

“There it is, Pete,” Mag says, stepping aside to give Nureyev a better view. “The reactor that powers all of New Kinshasa.” 

Nureyev steps closer, his face bathed in the crimson glow.

“They were all brought here,” Mag continues. “Your father. Your friends. A hundred thousand lives, dragged to this very spot and sacrificed in the name of a hungry god. The people in charge of this city trapped it here a long time ago, to give them power over all of Brahma. But we can take it away from them.” 

Nureyev swallows. He remembers all too clearly the faces of friends who were dragged into the floating city and never seen again, the stories of a father who died trying to bring this reign of terror to an end. He’s waited all his life to do this.

Mag steps closer behind him. “It can all end right here, Pete. Right now. All it takes is cut, and it’ll all be over.” His grip tightens on the knife in his hand and he brings it to Nureyev’s throat. The motion is deft and silent, entirely outside of Nureyev’s peripheral vision. Nureyev doesn’t stand a chance.

Before he can slide the blade across Nureyev’s jugular, a spasm sweeps over his features. The hungry grin falls away, and so does the knife, landing with a splash at Nureyev’s feet.

Nureyev turns, stumbling against the beating heart of New Kinshasa as he stares in horror at his mentor. Mag is shuddering violently, his hands opening and closing too rapidly as they grasp at the knives hidden along his belt. The skin around his tattoos blisters around the ink, carrying with it the smell of burning flesh.

“Peter,” Mag chokes. “Peter, get– get out– it’s got me– it’s going to–” His hand closes on the knife, and he draws it in a wide slash. He has reach and raw power behind the attack, but Nureyev has speed.

It’s a short fight: after all, Mag’s the one who taught Nureyev how to use a knife.

Juno wishes he could look away, but he can’t.

He watches Mag go still, Nureyev’s knife in his chest. He watches those big, owlish eyes wide with terror and grief as he stumbles back. He watches him sink into the pool of what must be blood, and then keep sinking deeper than he rightfully should.

He holds up a shaking hand, beseeching. Begging. “Please…” He shudders, his expression wavering between that too-wide grin and a look of grief as that thing tries to take hold of him. “Pete, please…”

He isn’t begging for his life.

Nureyev knows that. And so he takes the knife that’s still embedded in his mentor’s chest.

Mag reaches out and touches Nureyev’s cheek. Tenderly. Lovingly. Gratefully.

And Nureyev carves through his throat,

Mag lets out a bubbling, wheezing breath as he slides down the wall, and the ankle-deep pool swallows him whole.

Nureyev steps away from him, his grip tightening on the knife, and turns to the heart of New Kinshasa and its murderous Angel.

It took everything from him. Everything.

And so he throws himself at the beating heart, hacking and slashing and stabbing, his breath caught in gasps and screams, his glasses askew and smudged with splattered blood and running tears. He only comes to his senses when he hears the clatter of footsteps and the voices of guards– and of Madam Rossignol herself– raised in alarm, and he flees. Their voices carry as he runs:

“Oh my god– somebody’s let it out–” And then their words give way to screams.

Nureyev can feel its consciousness unfurling as it feasts on its first new offerings. He can feel its satisfaction as it devours the insignificant mortals who thought they could contain its greatness, that they could appease it with paltry offerings and sacrifices.

And then it turns its attention to the boy who released it from its prison, and it _laughs_.

Nureyev screams– and twenty years later, so does Juno, trying to rip himself away from the million eyes of the Angel. He feels Nureyev’s arms around him, his hands on his skin, hears the distant echo of his voice, but Juno’s trapped in the past. He ducks into another memory, hours later, in the spaceport as Nureyev leaves Brahma for good. The blood and ichor are washed away, his clothes are starched and clean, and he wears an easy smile to draw off suspicion. For a few moments at a time, he can even make his hands stop shaking.

It’s all he can do not to break into a run in the crowded spaceport. Because it’s there. He can feel its eyes on him, watching him like a predator in the high grass, and if he makes one wrong move, it’s going to spring. He needs to pretend not to notice, inch away as casually as he can manage, and maybe he’ll be able to put enough distance between them to escape.

It’s a thin hope.

He’s only on the planet Lacaille for a few weeks before he starts noticing the creaking walls and flickering lights. He tells himself he’s paranoid, that he’s seeing things that aren’t there– right until the moment his tattoos burn and the walls start to bleed, and the Angel is on him again.

He leaves the Iota Normae system and makes his way to Akna. Weeks later, the Angel is on his heels.

He crosses the galaxy and takes shelter in the Perseus arm, but he might as well have gone across the street for all the good it does him. A few weeks later it finds him again, always right on his heels, always laughing.

It’s toying with him. He catches on to that pretty quick. Now that its captors are gone, the full weight of its attention is on the boy who set it free. When he dives into a war zone looking for a weapon that could kill it, he finds himself pinned down in the midst of a firefight– and then all he hears is screaming as soldiers on both sides are torn to shreds. 

He’s not sure if it sees him as some kind of high priest or favorite prey, but the message is clear: nobody but the Angel gets to have him.

And so he keeps running. He collects sacred symbols on his skin– the marks can’t save him forever, but they manage to hide him from the Angel’s eyes for a few days, and then a few months. They give him a little more sense of self when its presence bears down on him, threatening to crush the soul out of him. And always, always, they offer a warning. 

And then one day, he arrives in the Solar system. And not long after, on Mars.

_“You can eat in the car. I’m in kind of a rush. Some mummy wants me dead or something.”  
_

_“It doesn’t sound like that scares you much.”_

_“Honestly, it doesn’t.”_

Juno feels like he should pull away from these memories. What came before this was a warning. This, though? This is different. It’s too warm, too intimate, seeing himself through Nureyev’s eyes. The Juno Steel in those memories is unafraid of the eldritch monsters that lurk in the world, but he’s not an idiot about dealing with them. Nureyev feels braver beside him– and smarter– and _safer_ , even in those moments when he’s looking up at a mass of spinning blades.

And for the first time in twenty years, he feels what’s always been there: the ache of loneliness, every time he thinks of leaving Juno behind. And for the first time in his life, he makes an offer that feels a little bit more like a plea.

And Juno – Juno sees himself from a different angle now, reflected in the shallow pool of surface thoughts. His eyes are wide and staring at nothing, the right one entirely obscured by the blood pouring down his face. There’s blood everywhere– it’s all over him– not just the runoff from his eye, but scrawled into symbols across his skin by Nureyev’s careful hands. He doesn’t know where all the blood came from– if it’s from his eye, or from the body of the masked assistant lying prone beside him, or if it came dripping from the walls.

“Juno, please, you have to wake up,” Nureyev begs him. “We’re out of time.”

Juno tries to speak, but he can only groan.

A thought crosses Nureyev’s mind: he can leave Juno here. If he makes a break for it now, he can make it to the teleporters before the Angel manifests. 

Just as quickly the thought is tossed aside, and he curls around Juno, shielding him from sight as a new wave of guards comes running, their weapons drawn. Miasma arrives moments later, walking with the unrushed purpose of a tenured academic.

“It’s alright, love,” Nureyev whispers. “Take as much time as you need.” 

Either both of them make it out or neither of them do.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Miasma growls, and she raises her voice in command. “Assistants, kill the–” And then her eyes fall on the walls. “Delay that order. _Thief_.” She turns her attention to the two of them without shifting her gaze. “How long has that been going on? How did you activate it?”

Nureyev looks from the walls to her. “What?”

She strides forward. “I know every inch of this tomb. I know every one of its secrets. If there were any traps in this room, I would have found it. I want to know what you did to activate it.”

“Guess you learn something new every day,” Juno groans. The one-liner isn’t worth the energy it takes to deliver it, but it gets a nice scowl from Miasma. 

“Assistant–”

And the lights die. The only illumination comes from the heiroglyphics embedded in the walls, their eerie glow stained an awful red. The power outage is accompanied by a long groan, but it doesn’t sound like settling pipes anymore. Juno suddenly doesn’t remember how he ever thought that it did. 

“I told you to fix that generator,” Miasma says, and two assistants take off. Their footsteps haven’t fully faded before they’re replaced by the sounds of laser fire, the crack of damaged stone, and then… nothing. Silence, followed by another groan. 

At Miasma’s signal, the last two assistants take off. They don’t last much longer. 

Miasma narrows her eyes and strides after them, though what she’s planning to do without a gun is anyone’s guess. Juno doesn’t really care right then. He’s more concerned with the cell door she left open behind her.

“This is our chance,” Nureyev whispers. “Please, Juno, you have to get up.” 

Juno feels like he took a swan dive into oncoming traffic, and like half the freeway is still rattling around inside his skull, but at least he’s had a chance to catch his breath. He lurches and sways, but he manages to get to his feet, even if Nureyev is the only one keeping him from crashing down again. 

But maybe even Peter Nureyev isn’t enough to keep him upright. Because while Nureyev’s dragging him away, Juno has the stupid idea to look down that hall. 

He can’t describe what he’s seeing– not because there aren’t words for it, but because he can’t comprehend it. Trying to focus on it is like trying to gain traction on an oil slick: his eyes go one way and his mind goes another, and his brain is left feeling like it got turned inside out. It’s the size of a car– no, a rabbit– no, an apartment building, so huge that it bleeds through the walls and ceiling, so massive it isn’t even standing on this floor. 

Beside it, even Miasma seems impossibly warped, too tall and with too many limbs, her face distended into impossible proportions. It almost looks like she’s wrestling the Angel, but there’s no way she can win. It’s too big. It’s too much. It’s made of fire– _no_ , bones and fur and a dozen heads– _no_ , black ichor and eyes– _no_ , a tower of wings and congealed blood– _no_ , wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels–

A door shuts behind him, blocking his view, but it doesn’t purge the afterimage burned into his retinas. 

“Just a little further,” Nureyev whispers into his ear. “We’re almost there.” 

Juno’s fading fast. By the time Nureyev lets go of him, he can’t do anything more than collapse onto the platform of a teleporter, his head lolling to one side, his eyes fixed on the door. It’s reinforced steel and concrete. It won’t stop the Angel for more than a few seconds.

The teleporter boots up with a sound like a tornado, and Nureyev rushes to his side. It roars as it twists the very fabric of time and space to take them across Mars, but one sound rises above the chaos of sundered physics: Miasma’s dying scream.

* * *

Juno wakes up feeling like he got in a bar fight with a freight train, and maybe that’s what happened. The entire right side of his face is painfully swollen and tender, his skull feels like it’s gonna split in two, he’s starving and dehydrated, and he smells like he hasn’t bathed in a month. 

Maybe he’s just been on the mother of all benders. Maybe that’s why he woke up in his apartment, tucked into his bed and staring at that familiar spot where the plaster’s starting to flake off of the ceiling. Maybe everything that happened– the train and Miasma and the tomb and the Angel– maybe that was all just a tequila dream.

The thought hurts almost as much as his splitting headache. Because if all of that was a dream, then Nureyev was, too.

And then the bathroom door opens with a billow of steam, and there he is. 

“Juno.” He says his name like a sigh. “You’re awake. I was starting to worry.”

His hair is damp, and beads of condensation gather on his skin, making his clothes cling tight against his body. Not his clothes, Juno realizes– he recognizes that turtleneck, and the skirt that he hasn’t been able to squeeze into in years, but somehow they both look amazing on Nureyev.

He catches Juno’s stare. “I hope you don’t mind my borrowing your clothes. I’m afraid my things were unsalvageable.” 

“Keep them.” Juno’s voice is hoarse and raw. How long has it been since he’s had something to drink? How long has it been since he’s had a shower? But before he can put words to the thoughts, Nureyev is bending over his bedside, pressing a glass of water into his hand.

He marvels at it for half a second. Water, just like that. No shouting for the guards, no rationing their supply, no endless internal debate about whether he’s thirsty enough to justify letting Miasma know he’s awake. He brings it to his parched lips and drinks greedily, relishing the way it spills over his mouth and drips down his chin.

“Careful, Juno.” Nureyev’s fingertips linger over Juno’s knuckles. “No need to choke. There’s plenty more if you want it.” His eyes flicker over Juno with a strange intensity, like he’s committing him to memory, and Juno suddenly feels self-conscious.

“You done with the shower?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. It shouldn’t make Nureyev look so sad. “Yes, Juno. I won’t be much longer. I only need to make myself a new passport, and then you’ll be rid of me for good.” 

Wait. No. That’s not what he meant. “You don’t have to–” The protest dies before Juno can put it into words. Yes, he does. Nureyev only barely escaped the Angel in the tomb; it won’t be long before it follows him here, and he needs to be offworld when it does. 

He can’t stay. No matter what Juno wants, he can’t stay. But he already said that, didn’t he?

“‘Always running, never looking back,’“ Juno repeats quietly. “You know, I assumed you were talking about running from the law.”

“That too.”

“You wanted to take me with you on this…” He doesn’t even have a word for it.

Nureyev smiles, soft and sad. “I’m a thief, Juno. I am prone to my moments of selfishness.”

And it _is_ selfish. No matter where he goes, the Angel will always be right on his heels. One day it’s going to be faster than he is, and it’s going to kill him, along with anyone who’s unlucky enough to be nearby when that happens. Asking anyone else to come along is just one step shy of a death threat.

That always was the surest way to get Juno Steel to do anything.

“So when do we leave?”

If he’s just there to keep Peter company, then at least that’s hard to fuck up. For all his flaws, he can at least be there for him.

And so what if that thing kills them? He never actually thought he’d make it to fifty, anyway. Might as well spend the last stretch on an adventure.

And it’s worth it for that look of awe and gratitude and relief on Peter’s face. And you know, Juno wouldn’t mind making him look like that a bit more often.


End file.
